The punctuation signals in argumentative essays: a pedagogical intervention on e-learning Pedagogy students’ writings

Abstract

This article is the result of a doctoral research that investigated the evolution of e-learning in Southern Brazilian Pedagogy students’ writings. Its relevance is anchored at the alarming results related to use/mastery of writing among Brazilian college students, which is of concern especially in the case of future Basic Education teachers. The research had a qualitative approach, consisting of a pedagogical intervention: a type of investigation that involves planning and implementation of interferences, i. e., changes/pedagogical innovations that aimed at producing advances/improvements in educational processes, and the evaluation of their effects. During seven semesters, systematic and guided pedagogical activities were carried out along with meticulous interventional follow-ups on the texts of three students, adopting Historical-Cultural Theory as a theoretical-methodological basis, in dialogue with Textual Linguistics and tips on punctuation by Noah Lukeman. Data were collected through linguistic and grammatical analysis of the texts produced by the students. In this paper, we highlight the results related to the use of punctuation in their writings. Less experienced writers tend not to use punctuation elements properly, generating ambiguities and excessively long periods, consisting of poorly connected sentences. This tendency, added to an inadequate use of commas, significantly impair their texts’ interpretation. Even though the three academics still presented very long periods and misused commas in their Final Paper (last text written for the Pedagogy course), the reduction of these deficiencies was noticeable, making it possible to infer that the guided-pedagogical interventions contributed to the improvement of their texts.